The Grant Wood Art Colony

Grant Wood (1891-1942) helped develop the Stone City Art Colony in Stone City, Iowa, which operated during the summers of 1932 and 1933. The Grant Wood Art Colony, under the direction of the School of Art and Art History at UIowa, honors Wood's belief in the importance of art colonies by offering the Grant Wood Fellowship program and organizing a biennial symposium.

The Daily Palette is celebrating The Grant Wood Art Colony this week by featuring the work of two of its fellows. The Grant Wood Fellowship show, which includes the work of 2012-2013 Fellows Hartmut Austen and Jeremy Lundquist, will be held April 16-21 in the ABW Gallery. A reception for this exhibition will be held on April 19th.

MARIÁNGELES SOTO-DÍAZ
Abstract Numbers of a Revolution, installation at the Staging Gallery, UIowa, research handouts, sanded ash black gouache on wood panels, vinyl on wall, 2011

Mariángeles Soto-Díaz was a 2011-2012 Grant Wood Fellow.  A native of Venezuela, she currently lives and works in Southern California.  Soto-Díaz earned an MFA in Painting from Claremont Graduate University in California and an MA in Aesthetics and Politics from the School of Critical Studies at CalArts.

The artist writes that, This monochrome black series exposes Venezuela's soaring violence and increasing media blackout during the last decade. Titles of the individual paintings (2011) all refer to this condition: "157,808: Total number of homicides registered in Venezuela during the twelve and a half years of Hugo Chavez's democratic government" "4,550: Number of homicides registered in Venezuela in 1998, at the beginning of Hugo Chavez's first presidential term" "20,743: Number of unresolved homicide cases in the Caracas Metropolitan Area from 1998-2009" "19,113: Official number of homicides registered in Venezuela during 2009" "16,047: Number of homicides registered in Venezuela during 2009" "405: Number of kidnappings the first 100 days of 2010" "70: Number of killings per 100,000 inhabitants in 2009" "91: Percentage of unresolved homicides in 2009" "26,873: Number of kidnappings between July 2008 and July 2009" "RCTV Closure" "Gag law" "Gag law amendments" "Every 30 minutes" "A Moment of Silence" "The Internet too" "If Only" [photo: Jesse James Sinclair]

Mariángeles Soto-Díaz's website